


Often Inconvenient

by gardnerhill



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Watson and Holmes (Comics)
Genre: Community: watsons_woes, Gen, Post-it Notes, Prompt Fic, Racism, Watson's Woes July Writing Prompts 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-22
Updated: 2015-07-22
Packaged: 2018-04-10 18:09:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4402046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p> “I have often found it inconvenient [to be a black man] in America.” – Bert Williams</p>
            </blockquote>





	Often Inconvenient

**Author's Note:**

> For the 2015 July Watson's Woes Promptfest prompt #22, _While You were Out_ _. Watson returns home after a long day to find a note pinned to his door.  What is the note? Who left it? It's all up to you_.

_Watson –_  
_A new Pharaoh._  
_DWB._  
_At station. Come prepared._  
_\--- Holmes_  
  
Jon Watson stared at the yellow square in the center of Holmes’ door – written in Mrs. Hudson’s scrawly handwriting.  
  
He’d been picking up his friend’s methods for a while now, with the same sharp attention to detail that he used to triage patients at Convent Emergency.  
  
So. Deduce this Post-It message, Dr. I’m-Just-a-Medical-Intern Watson.  
  
He hadn’t seen any waiting messages or texts from Holmes when he’d turned his cell back on, after a full day of surgery. But Holmes knew he’d have had the phone off. Called the landlady instead – which would inform two people, once he’d seen the note too. And he’d told Holmes he’d meet him at Baker Street after his shift.  
  
“A new Pharaoh” – obvious reference to the line in Exodus about a new ruler who turned his back on the old ways and old associations, who’d made slaves of former allies.  
  
Allies…Holmes was allies with the police (and took enough grief for that from brothers who called him snitch or sellout when they were being polite).  
  
So Lieutenant Stroud was away, and someone else had been working with Holmes – or was on the scene when Holmes showed up at a crime. Someone who didn’t know Holmes or his methods.  
  
Jon Watson dropped his head and rested the crown against the door, right over the Post-It. He exhaled mightily.  
  
Now he understood the note. It was Holmes’ one phone call.  
  
“DWB” normally meant Driving While Black/Brown, an acronym every black or Hispanic driver knew as the real charge when they were pulled over by white police and searched, ticketed, and arrested or shot over trifles while white motorists sped by unbothered (many of them with drugs, guns or even bodies in their trunks).  
  
But here it meant Deducing While Black. Holmes had started to tell the po-po what had really happened at the crime scene, and a cop Jon would bet a month’s pay was white had decided he wouldn’t put up with a black civilian giving him attitude. Holmes was in lockup at the station.  
  
“Come prepared” = “Bring bail money.”  
  
So his night had not yet begun, was what that note said. First he had to get his partner’s ass out of jail – and _then_ they could go over Beryl Cornet’s case.  
  
Mrs. Hudson met Jon at the foot of the stairs as he headed for the front door. She handed him a paper bag – which he knew from the smell was a Tupperware of her _arroz con pollo_. “Got locked up again. He’ll be hungry.” She shook her head.  “Maybe Mr. H should stop helping the police.”  
  
Jon laughed a little. “Mrs. Hudson, he does this _in spite_ of the police. All he wants is to find out the truth – and this sure as hell doesn’t seem to stop him.” Slow him down a bit, maybe, but not stop him. “Thanks for the food. I know you made enough for me too.”  
  
She dimpled. “Got a handsome doctor coming to see me regular, of course I’ll make enough for him too!”  
  
With another laugh Jon Watson went out the door. Thank God Jabez at Wilson’s Bail Bonds owed Holmes big time, he’d get a good rate.


End file.
